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What Miller Did: An Update. With Hearsay!

Jim Whitaker accused Joe Miller of a very serious, illegal use of Fairbanks North Star Borough computers. Local Republican leaders like Ralph Seekins, and State Party Chair Randy Ruedrich, responded by basically accusing Whitaker of lying. After all, Ruedrich said, Whitaker came out in support of Presidential candidate Obama; how can you believe him. To a certain kind of Republican, that line of illogic apparently makes sense. But it’s all hearsay. Ruedrich and Seekins don’t actually know anything; they weren’t at the Borough meetings. They haven’t seen Miller’s personnel file.

WC read still more hearsay in this morning’s News-Miner, but it’s hearsay from an unusual and possibly credible source. The News-Miner reports:

Mike Rostad, a longtime freelance religion and personalities columnist for the Kodiak Daily Mirror and a Republican and Tea Party activist in Kodiak, sent an e-mail to 10 people late Thursday in which he details a call he said he received from Rex Miller, the father of the Republican Senate nominee.

So a Kodiak Tea Bagger talked to Joe Miller’s dad. Joe Miller’s dad, Rex Miller, wasn’t present either, but if he got this story from Joe Miller, then it’s credible hearsay. Rostad, not so much, but it’s one Tea Bagger talking about another Tea Bagger, so WC is inclined to talk about it, even though no court would consider letting it in as evidence.

Rostad, in turn, sent an email to ten people describing his conversation with Rex Miller. And, inevitably, one of those ten made it completely public. So here’s the News-Miner’s version of Mike Rostad’s version of Rex Miller’s version of Joe Miller’s version of Jim Whitaker’s accusation:

-> It’s true <-

Here’s the money quote:

“One noon hour, on his own time at the borough, Joe participated in an online poll voting against Randy,” Rostad wrote in the e-mail, recounting the Thursday morning conversation he said he had with Rex Miller. “He used four office computers in the office to do it, thinking this was his chance to boost numbers to get rid of Randy. He emptied the cache files on the computers so the users wouldn’t know what he had done.”

WC is glad that Miller committed his felonies on his lunch hour and not on the Borough clock. However, it’s irrelevant to the real issue. Note that Joe Miller wiped the computers’ cache files afterwards. That’s the one of the places where a computer user leaves “digital fingerprints” of what he or she has done. (Not the only one, Joe.) And that’s very good evidence that Miller knew what he was doing was wrong. He was attempting to conceal the fact a crime had taken place. He was trying to wipe the fingerprints off of the crime scene. That’s certainly evidence he knew he’d done something criminal. Oh,and that’s a separate crime, by the way. Tampering with Evidence, AS 11.56.610, and possibly Tampering with a Public Record, AS 11.56.820.

And can you imagine Randy Ruedrich’s outrage if someone suggested a Democrat had stuffed the ballot box like that?

It’s amusing to see Republicans apparently working at cross-purposes. Republican Mike Rostad giving more credibility to Whitaker’s claims, all while Ruedrich and Seekins are trying to destroy that credibility. But it’s sad to see that there are no Republicans doing the right thing. We know what Ted Stevens would have done in this situation, because he had the courage to do it in his own life. Ted Stevens would have said, “Get the whole story out and let the people decide.” No Republican but Jim Whitaker has said that. No other Republican leader WC has seen has called for Joe Miller to make his personnel file public. Don’t you wonder why that is?

And, specifically, Joe Miller hasn’t done that. Joe Miller continues to stonewall the press, the voters and Alaska. There’s strong evidence – admittedly, hearsay, but strong hearsay – that Joe Miller is an unindicted felon. Who admitted his crimes to his own father – how else would his father know? But there’s still 35% of Alaskans who claim they will vote for him?

Do you know anyone who can explain what “resign” means on the DD214 and how a resignation affects the service requirement for military academy? I can see something like a loan forgiveness for war zones, such as Public Health Service gives for medicos who work in underserved areas.

WC said “But there’s still 35% of Alaskans who claim they will vote for him?”

There is always a percentage of people in any group whom will always believe what they want to believe. This is regardless of tangible “reach out and touch it” evidence.

Social and scientific progress is made despite these people.

There are a few things I miss from mine and my parents childhood which I think should be brought back.

The first one is equal reporting and fairness in public broadcasting. I’d also include bringing back the 3 TV station ownership limit.

The second are Citizenship classes that some schools used to have. I’d love to see “Plato’s Republic” and actual debate societies brought back. I’ll admit I didn’t think highly of these while attending school. But I find that, without my noticing, they made me a better informed and more reasoned person.

WC:
In response to “mpb”‘s inquiry about “resign” on the DD214, it’s an indication that an officer’s departure from active duty service was by resigning his commission. West Pointers are commissioned into the Regular Army upon graduation. So when he left active duty, he resigned his commission. Other documents relating to him such as his judicial application indicate that he was then in the Individual Ready Reserve until approx 1997. He was then an officer in the Reserves, and he has indicated that he held the rank of Captain, which seems correct under the circumstances.
Regular Army commissions are not issued only to West Pointers. I was commissioned into the Regular Army upon completion of ROTC, and some who complete OCS, or Officer Candidate School, eventually obtain a Regular Army commission. (An example: Pres. Clinton’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Shalikashvili (sp?) was commissioned through OCS and would have obtained a Regular Army commission sometime thereafter. His is a signal accomplishment not only in achieving four-star flag rank as OCS grad but to achieve top rank; it’s unparalleled.)
Like Miller, when I chose to leave upon finishing my four-year active duty commitment, I “resigned” my commission and, again like him, I was in the IRR–Individual Ready Reserve–for some time after. (that means I wasn’t in a Reserve unit and didn’t have to go to monthly drill or summer camp; basically, I was still “on the rolls” if needed)
As to the consequence of resigning before fulfilling a five-year commitment, ordinarily that could be an extraordinary occasion. But there was an Early Release program in the early 1990s that affected several USMA classes, including his class of 1989. The fact that he “resigned” and thereafter was on the rolls in the IRR until 2007 suggests to me that his departure from the military–albeit prior to completion of five years–was in the ordinary course of events and was undoubtedly part of the widely reported Early Release that came about upon the cessation of the Cold War when the Soviet Union collapsed and we cut back a bit.
I hope this is helpful, and I apologize for the lengthiness of it. I feel almost like I’m stealing WC’s thread, but I don’t mean to do that.

@mpd– In what I could find out, an “unqualified resignation” is one requested by the officer himself. It must be approved before it can happen. It can be used to cover up a multitude of other reasons so we won’t be able to know anything from that.

However, the fact that the RE code (re-enlist…#27) is an N/A is more facinating to me than anything.

I am following this story from Pennsylvania. I can’t understand why it isn’t being carried in the New York Times. This is a Senate race and could make a big difference in the November election. Any ideas? Thanks for your coverage.

paul2eaglin Thanks for your very helpful remarks. I hope WC will think about hijacking your comment into a post by itself (WordPress comments don’t get searchbotted, or they didn’t, only posts. I know others would be interested in the DD214 meaning).

I did a little (very little, I’m sure; discharges seem like arcane law) reading through the Army regs (fascinating bit about the changes in the past decade or so in “spin codes”)– I agree with Linda that the N/A re-enlistment code is intriguing. Any knowledge of that significance, if any?

to “mpb” Sunday Oct 17th
No, I don’t know with certainty the significance of n/a in that block. Nor do I know what my own has entered there. Mine is kept securely so it’s not something that I can just pull out to peruse.
I wouldn’t be surprised if mine also has n/a there since I resigned my Regular Army commission to leave active duty.
I don’t know about others but my impression of the term “re-enlist” is that it is associated with Enlisted personnel–the non-officer ranks–who “enlist” for stated terms/years of service. A commissioned officer in the Regular Army active duty is one who serves until such time as he or she and/or the Army choose to end the relationship. So one does not “re-enlist” for additional years as an officer, so it would not be surprising that an officer’s DD 214 would have n/a there whereas the DD 214 of an Enlisted person would have a substantive entry there.
I’m also not clear about the modifier “unqualified” resignation in the earlier post. Either one has resigned or one has not. I have no idea what condition one might put on the resignation to make it a qualified resignation.

All you have to do is read the Army officer separation regulations, and you will understand what a “qualified” resignation vs. an “unqualified” one is. Miller hadn’t completed his Active Duty Service Obligation, so according the regulations, he wouldn’t normally be eligible for an unqualified resignation (USMA grades aren’t supposed to be eligible for an unqualified resignation until they meet their ADSO of five years). But my guess is that he got accepted at Yale Law School, and wrote a letter to the Department of the Army stating that he had gotten into Yale, there was a drawdown going on, and would they please approve his unqualified resignation? A Regular Army officer can always ask to resign; but an unqualified resignation isn’t normally accepted until an officer has completed his ADSO. It’s possible for it to be accepted earlier if circumstances permit (no war going on, excess numbers of officers) and the chain of command approves the resignation. MIller hasn’t released his letter requesting that his resignation be approved, so we can’t be sure why he asked to resign, but something along these lines is my best guess. And because Miller hadn’t completed his ADSO of five years or his Mandatory Service Obligation (MSO) of eight years, he was required–upon resignation from the Regular Army–to accept a commission in the Army Reserve. After resigning from the Regular Army, Miller sat in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) for the rest of his MSO, doing nothing, until he hit the end of his MSO–at which point he resigned his Reserve commission, too. The promotion to captain would have happened routinely while he was in the IRR; there’s no promotion board in the IRR for captains–they just get promoted when they have the requisite number of years in service.

MIller got quite a good deal from the US taxpayer; four years of a paid undergraduate education in exchange for three years & a few months of active duty, and nothing further.